.tiff format files

[mikerofoto]

I'm going through different setting for saving files on my hard drive, always saving as .tiff so I got more range of colours with whatever program to be use with.

now I'm having some issues and i've been trying many ways of saving with AP and came to that.

NEF file is = 69MB

save as .tiff 16bit from NEF =  272.7MB

 

open/modified and exporting from AP=

save as affinityphoto format 8bit = 482.4MB

clicking cmd/S for saving with layer 8bit = 546.7MB

export as .tiff without layer 8bit = 33.6MB

export as .tiff without layer 16bit = haven't tried that yet

 

-so the question is, why would saving with layer triple the file size?, and that's only using layers and mask, no added images finishing with merge visible.

-changing to 8bit from 16bit and deleting the background in snapshot before saving or exporting.

 

how can I save my files with layers without reaching the 500MB size?

 

thanks

[v_kyr]

You can't save that much space for layered TIFFs (similar here to AFPHOTO, PSD etc.), even not that much with compression.

When you edit RAW files in a purely raw editor, let's say like CNX2, Lightroom etc., they're not pixel edits per se, the edits are stored as more compact math. You start out with a RAW file of 10-30 MB, and no matter how much editing you do to it, the file size really doesn't change that much. So editing in a RAW editor is very compact compared to bitmap/pixel edits here. When you convert those raws to TIFF, those compact raws now have to be expanded to 3-channel RGB files. Each 10MB raw bloats out to a 100MB TIFF. There is no way around it. And while images used to be 8-bit, now we like 16-bit. Partly because cameras nowadays shoot 12-16 bit, so 8 bits is no longer enough to preserve quality. But 16-bit in turn means those files are now at least twice as large as they were in 8-bit. Just the moment going from RAW to TIFF, you signed up for massive file size increases. But as indicated above, the big file sizes are actually a normal consequence of conventional editing. What's different is that if you edit purely RAW, you save huge amounts of disk space over conventional layered pixel editing because you avoid making bloated copies of every raw. So the usual way to save file size here is only to stay in raw mode as long as possible.

If you create TIFFs with many layers, including adjustment layers, it's not unusual that these are many hundreds of megs big. If you use clone layers or blend layers - where each layer is in effect a full resolution bit-mapped version of the image, and you have many of those also with masks then a usual 6000x4000px image TIFF can even get over 1GB.

So if you are sure that you are through with an TIFF image and don't need to bring it back into AP, then flatten the layers in order to save space. Or aftercreate and work on 16-bit TIFFs, save a JPEG copy to give to the client, then go back into the folder a few weeks after the job's delivered and delete the TIFFs. Make external backup copies first and delete them then from the hard drive later.

Personally I only keep the RAWs and worked out JPGs here, since every thing else is long-term too space consuming.

[mikerofoto]

thanks, I know .tiff are big, I have quite a few around 1GB per image, I just wanted to see if there’s a way to save some space other than jpeg. I tried flatten, which really just turn to be about the same (+/-50MB) as exporting a 16bit .tiff without keeping layers.

[v_kyr]

Na there isn't much you can do with TIFFs in this regard. As said the best is to make as much as possible with retuching in a RAW editor and then convert when you have still only few things left which you can't do in RAW that good at all. That's the only way to keep TIFFs smaller then, if you only have few modification layers.